Trump's first day hints bring hope for global security
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. With me, Toby Gillis, joined today by Alex Dibble.

Yesterday's World in 10, which was recorded before Donald Trump's inauguration, focused on Mr Trump's foreign policy in Trey. A day on, the 47th President of the United States has given some hints about how he's going to handle elements of it. We're joined today by Jim Townsend, who spent more than 30 years working in US defence and foreign policy, including eight as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for European and NATO policy.

Jim, in terms of foreign policy yesterday, we didn't learn a huge amount, although there were snippets, which we'll come to. But maybe one domestic policy, this vow to build the most powerful military the world has ever seen, would have an impact globally. Is that a sign that he's going to increase US spending to 5% of GDP on defence, as he wants NATO allies to do? And if not, what do you think he means?

Well, frankly, he has that now. So a lot of that is rhetoric that the U.S. finds itself flat on its back in terms of the military. The U.S. military has its challenges. If we were to go at 5%, assuming that we're not quite there yet, well,

Well, actually, what you're raising is an important point, not just in the NATO context, but in the U.S. budgetary context. And I won't bore your listeners talking about the U.S. budget, but we are watching to see if he puts more money into the defense budget, because I mentioned we have challenges just like the U.K. And so I'm hoping that whether it's to go over 5 percent or 5 percent or wherever we are statistically, we're going to need to do that.

On the other hand, we've got a lot of his MAGA people saying we spend too much money fighting other people's wars or whatever it might be, like Elon Musk. Maybe he's looking at the defense budget to make some cuts. I don't know. So your point is a good one in terms of what will this administration do with the defense budget?

But I do know the budget that the last administration, the Biden administration, sent to the Hill a few weeks ago probably wasn't quite enough. But just your point back to NATO, though, and the 5% GDP for allies,

That's going to be a stretch. I think what he was doing is like any bargainer, you know, you go in to the bargaining table with the whole loaf and you say, this is what I want, the whole loaf. And then you negotiate and negotiate. And if you end up with half a loaf, that might be fine with you, too. He went in to say five percent. I have no idea where he got that figure.

And so I think at NATO, at the summit this summer, they will have to decide on it. And we'll see where the number lands. But I put my bet on 3%. One area of foreign policy Donald Trump did address was the Ukraine war. And he actually directly told Vladimir Putin he should make a deal saying that Putin is destroying Russia's economy. I thought it was interesting that that message was aimed at Putin rather than Zelenskyy.

If he doesn't agree, does that give hope to Ukraine that the U.S. support is going to continue? Well, you're absolutely right. It is a message to Putin. And, you know, I think one of the issues that the administration is going to face in making a deal, as he said he was going to do, you know, he repeated that again about ending the war. The war's got to end.

His problem is that there isn't a lot of leverage over Putin in the sense that Putin thinks he's got all the time in the world. He's got all the resources in the world in terms of manpower. He's on a war footing. Who knows what his military leaders have been telling him about what the prospects of victory look like. He says, oh, we're always ready to talk. But he's talking about a whole loaf. He's going to go in with a whole loaf that isn't just Ukraine. He's going to go in and want to talk about a whole new security architecture for Europe.

So I don't think Putin thinks that he's destroying his economy. In fact, you hear, I'm not an economist, but you hear different things about how well his economy is actually doing. Evading sanctions, the price of oil that they are able to export to others. I mean, the Chinese are buying, the Indians buy. So Trump might paint a picture for Putin that is gloomy for you if you don't cut a deal.

I don't know if Putin sees it that way. The leverage that they would use over Putin was exactly Putin. If you're not coming to the table, I'm going to give Ukraine more weapons and stuff than they could. Will that scare Putin?

Putin could gamble with that and say, OK, Trump, go ahead. Let me see you get that through your MAGA people and all the people in Congress who don't want you to spend money on Ukraine. You know, maybe Putin calls his bluff. And secondly, even if Trump says, OK, I'm going to unleash all this assistance, do we have it? You know, we have been very nervous about our own stocks.

And the defense industries have not been able to replenish our stocks because of well-known problems with producing military equipment. So it could be that Hegseth, his new SecDef probably, his new Secretary of Defense, would say to Trump, look, I know you want to just open the tap for assistance to Ukraine, but we don't have it. And we're not going to get it replenished for 10 years.

So we really can't. Jim, Trump did not directly address plans for tariffs against China, which was one of his main campaigning promises. Is that a sign, do you think, that he would actually prefer to do a deal with China? Well, you know, you can make a case that he bullies other countries by threatening tariffs or invade their country to take the Panama Canal, whatever it is.

Even with Putin, that wasn't much of a bullying. As we were just talking about what he was saying about the Russian economy, that wasn't much of a shove. But with China, he's not doing that. And you would think that if he was going to cut a deal, his typical tactic was to bully. But I think China is in a whole different league. And his approach is going to be very different than with a smaller, weaker, opposite number.

So I think he does want a deal. What the outlines of the deal could be, I think they're probably still working on. He hasn't he didn't mention China at all. I having said all of that, there was a proxy over the past few days that didn't involve China. And that was the future of TikTok.

And so if you remember, with the past few days, the Biden administration and the Supreme Court and the Congress were going to shut down TikTok in the United States because of the perceived harm to U.S. national security, etc. And one of the executive measures that he signed was to delay that. So in a sense, he kind of threw a bouquet of roses to the Chinese government.

So he's kind of holding that a little bit as a little bit of leverage. And so that's a whole different tactic for dealing with the Chinese. So that's his tactic with China. It's very different. It doesn't involve public intimidation and bullying. It's very quiet. So we'll have to see. But that TikTok was actually giving us some insight into his view about his approach to China.

Jim, finally, I want to put you on the spot a bit, a lot actually. This is a different world now. There's no mistake with Trump in charge. I want to gauge your optimism a bit. Take a scale, let's say 0 to 10, and we'll call 0, you know, World War III starts tomorrow, and 10 is harmony, that the whole world are friends. Where are you on that scale when you look ahead to the next four years?

Well, you've really set me up. Oh, my God. Well, you know, in Washington, the first thing you learn is never to answer a question like that. But I'll give it a go because it's an interesting question. I'll say that the number 10 on your scale, we're all friends, and that's never a condition in the world. You'll never reach that. As much as you try to go in that direction, as much as you want that,

And the imminence of World War III, or actually being in the early stages of it, so that's number one on your scale. If you talk to people in Poland or in the Baltic nations, they will say, we're already there. So it's not like World War III is as far away as it had been in the past. So where are we then? I would say that over the next four years with Trump,

Is Donald Trump as a peacemaker? Is he going to go in and make peace? We've got a new team with a new approach, a new way of dealing with things. In the past, we dealt with things through dialogue and through conversation.

processes that made us comfortable, but showed weakness to bad guys. We've got someone different now who's got a different image of being a strong man. Is that what Putin will listen to? Is that something she will say, well, we're dealing with a different sheriff in town. We're going to make some concerns. I mean, we'll have to see. So in this second day,

Given a new approach, as unsettling as it feels, we have a chance to move away from that 0, 1, 2 part of your spectrum. If, in fact, his way of dealing with strong men works.

Jim Townsend, a little positive to end with there. Thank you for joining us on The World in 10. And thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow. ACAS powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

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